Pallet remakes

AS spring seems to be having her wicked way with us, I thought it would be nice to share some pallet based remakes, chairs and such forth..

I will start with a deceptively simple Hanging Pallet Chair/hammock..
Its so simple, I don't really think it needs a how to.

You are joking about the " simple" bit, right?

How did you make it?? It is lovely, btw.

I will take a photo of my pallet potting bench and pallet staging, when I can find my camera....seem to have mislaid it somewhere...

Thats a cracker, went car booting yesterday & managed to pick up a car jack for £1 for an idea I have to split pallets...

It must be the time of year for loosing cameras, cant find mine either...

I like the seat Once you've cut and drilled the wood you could set a small person threading the string I guess - it is a bit like those sew and lace cards !

I guess you need to be fairly picky over which pallets you use - most of the ones I can get are made out of pretty poor wood, and not well seasoned so that they are twisted and split. And getting those serrated nails out without destroying them is tough, even with a good wrecking bar. I was left with enough bits for a bird table ...

I've had good success with other re-claimed wood though. Divan beds and sofas often have quie a bit of useable wood in them too. I used an old double divan to make a stool and a garden gate.

That is seriously beautiful Badger!

Mrs C

Be sure only to use pallets that have been condemned as no longer fit for purpose though - the amount of new pallets manufactured every year because perfectly good ones are taken out of circulation is quite shocking.

Good point there, Billy.

This could be part of the reason I've not had much luck with pallet wood - I only have had single use type pallets which are pretty light and rough.

Whenever I've been around palletting most of them new or not have been waiting to be thrown, they tell me they can't return or reuse them, the only ones I have been told get returned/reused as pallets are the ones with blue sides...

That's rather lovely I'm investigating pallet beds lol

I'll say again, if I hadn't already, that's a fine looking project. I love that you've taken something that would otherwise have gone to waste and made something lovely of it.

That type of disposable attititude is what I see of the pallets used here often as well Spar. Only the ones that are built to a certain rating are reusable. The lesser, unrated ones are single use for what's shipped on them. Kind of like a carboard box being only thick enough to hold the intended contents, not a load of nuts and bolts or what have you. It's one of the mysteries of materials packaging science, I suppose.

About the only saving grace I see in the plant that I work is that the used pallets and crates don't go to landfill. No pallets or wood of any sort is allowed in the dunnage bins. Anything not suitable for reuse is piled up in a specified area of the load yard. Periodically an outfit comes in with a monstrous grinding machine and pulverizes it all. Nails, staples, etc. (it can handle bolts up to 1" [2.5 cm] in diameter!) get magnetically seperated for recycling. The wood product is then sold off to recycling, etc. Indefinite reuse would be ideal, but minimized landfill mass is at least a part measure.

On a related note, once my Dad had acquired a great bobbin (spool, I know) from the electric company running new cable. It was a fine size for a round picknick table for the back garden. He coated it with creosote, let it cure nearly a year like this, then we sealed it and painted it. I imagine it would live forever after all of that!! The only thing that worries me now is what I know about the chemicals that went into that wood, both before we got it and what we treated it with. We never ate off of it without a table cloth, but now that I know better, I worry about things like arsenic, etc. Nowadays, I'm all for non-chemically treated lumber, only using natural preservatives such as linseed oil or something. But if I'm to use something reclaimed, free, offcuts, whatever, I try to make sure that the lumber is non-arsenic treated. And nothing that I can't fully acount for goes into the garden fire ring. Those ashes are used for ammendments.

Just my two bits worth. Keep up the lovely work!!

We get a great supply of pallets from our local newspaper. They pile up any that cant be reused and they're free to take. They also have these huge round spools, I keep looking at them wistfully, but have always needed a full load of pallets whenever we have been there. In my fantasy, we get there one day and there are no pallets just spools . We use the broken bits for fire lighting and the better stuff for fencing and compost bins. Going to use the next load for a temporary raised bed. I try not to worry too much about the chemicals, I figure, grown in my garden instead of an industrialised farm is ahead of the game in the first place.

http://lifeonthebalcony.com/how-to-turn-a-pallet-into-a-garden/

I'd love to try this project! Has anybody else heard of the difference between heat-treated and fumigated pallets? Evidently they mark the pallets depending on how they're created:

http://www.palnetusa.com/a/global-domestic-pallet-standards/intl-pallet-standards/what-every-buyer-needs-to-know.tpl

Evidently you want the stamp HT instead of MP, since MP means it's been covered in some sort of nasty chemical. Just fyi.